


Spiraling

by Hellosunshinemyoldfriend



Category: Chicago Med
Genre: Dark Thoughts, Trigger warning vomit, trigger warning depression, will halstead - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:27:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22526287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hellosunshinemyoldfriend/pseuds/Hellosunshinemyoldfriend
Summary: A look at Will's inner thoughts as he overworks himself trying to right all the wrongs he believes he's inflicted. He's spiraling out of control but he can't admit to it.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 26





	Spiraling

**Author's Note:**

> This is kind of dark but I was just thinking about everything Will's been doing lately and how much of his inner thoughts and reasoning we don't get to see and this just kind of flew out of me.

It started so slowly, that at first he didn’t even realise it was happening. It crept across what felt like his very soul, inch by inch. Stealing everything moment of peace, every scrap of joy, until all the felt was a paralysing fear, a pit in the very bottom of his stomach that, despite all his years of schooling, he could not bring himself to name. 

The irony is of course that he would have diagnosed it in a second, if he had a patient express to him all the things he himself was feeling, but when it’s you, your pain and your fear. Well so many things were best left unsaid. 

That’s what he’d been raised to believe. 

‘Boys don’t cry.’ 

Hadn’t that pretty much been the tag line of his entire childhood? Every grazed knee, every failed test, every hurt he’d ever felt, be it physical or emotional. It was always the same. 

‘Be a man.’

‘Man up.’

‘You gotta toughen up boy.’ 

And he tried.

Lord knows he tried. He pushed all his pain down, deep inside. He turned it into ambition, into drive, until one day he stopped hearing his father’s voice in his head in those moments of weakness, now it was his own voice. 

Taunting? Teaching? He didn’t even know anymore. The two had mixed together in his mind so long ago that now they seemed to belong to one another.

‘Pull it together. You’re being weak. What’s one more late night? One more bloodied nose?’ 

He would berate himself silently, working harder, desperate to do better. 

To be better.

He had something to prove, if only to himself. 

He had to have a purpose, because without a purpose, without a goal, a job to do, all he had was silence. 

When the ED was quiet, everyone taken care of. When he went home, alone, to a cold apartment. All he could do was think about every mistake he had made.

He was a doctor dammit! He couldn’t afford to make mistakes. His mistakes cost innocent people their lives. 

He didn’t kill them, but it felt like he may as well have. After all, in failing to save them, hadn’t he signed their death warrants? 

There was so much death. So much blood on his hands, literally and figuratively. His mind whirled as his thoughts spun out of control.

So much blood.  
So much death.  
So much pain. 

He had caused so much pain, to so many people. He felt so much pain. His failures seemed to pilling up to unimaginable heights lately.

What was he going to do? He knew, in his heart of hearts, that he was backing himself into a corner. That working at the safe injection site could only end badly, but he kept going. His self-appointed community service, maybe if he could just even up the tally board. The lives he’d lost and the ones he’d saved, maybe then everything would be okay. 

He knew it wasn’t rational. Just one more. That’s what he told himself. One more person saved. One more life changed. One more chance at making things right. One more night without sleep.

How long had it been now? 

Had to of been a few nights at least. But it was fine, he was fine. He’d had a couple of hours rest in the on-call room. What yesterday? The day before? 

It was becoming hard to tell. The days and nights seemed to all blend into one another. 

Work at the hospital. Work at the safe injection site. Coffee. Repeat. It went on and on. He worked harder and harder. Telling himself he just needed to harden up. To be a man. 

He was drowning, and the funny thing was that he knew it, but he just couldn’t stop himself. He couldn’t ask for help. How could he? He’d been taught all his life that to ask for help was weak, and that being weak was the worst thing he could be. 

Besides he was helping people and that was the very reason he became a doctor in the first place. To help people. To save lives. 

Not that he’d been saving lives recently. 

He clenched his eyes shut against the sting of tears. Biting down on his tongue until he tasted the metallic tang of blood on his lips. 

He’d made such a mess of everything. And he didn’t know how to fix it. Any of it. 

It was all too much. The pain, the loss, the hurt. It was eating him alive. 

He knew he needed to reach out to someone, anyone, and ask for help. But he couldn’t. It was hard enough to face himself in the mirror each morning, his tired eyes full of disappointment. He couldn’t see someone else look at him like that. He just couldn’t. 

If he were to be honest with himself he already had though hadn’t he? The look on Doctor Charles’ face when he found out about Will lying for his patient from the safe injection site. It had cut deep into Will’s soul to hear the pain, the betrayal in Doctor Charles’ voice when he’d yelled at Will for trying to manipulate him with his little brothers history with drugs, with his death. 

Will’s stomach churned at the thought of his own actions. He hadn’t wanted to hurt anyone. He was just desperate to save his patient, and he knew, he thought he knew, this was going to be the wakeup call the guy needed to get off the drugs. 

But it wasn’t. 

And he failed, again. 

Bile rose up his throat. As his mind replayed the scene again and again. He could feel his hands shaking, even as he reached up to tug anxiously at his hair. 

It was too much. 

He needed help, but he couldn’t make the words come out of his mouth, as desperate as he felt, he couldn’t do it. His brain just wouldn’t let him. 

“Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.” He begged, his hands dropping to fist at his eyes, as the tears fell out against his will. 

He was so tired. 

Physically, mentally, emotionally. 

The bile rose again and this time he couldn’t fight it. Throwing himself across the room as quick as his feet could carry him, he landed heavily on his knees, the tiles were cold even through his scrubs, as he retched violently. 

His body heaved painfully, emptying the little he had in his stomach, then continuing, he heaved again, acidic bile splashing into the porcelain bowl. 

Time lost all meaning as he kept retching. Bringing up mouthful after mouthful of bile. His throat burned and his eyes stung as tears ran down his face. He was too tired too even bring up a hand to wipe them away.

Eventually though the bile stopped coming, he dry retched a few times before collapsing back against the stall door, sliding down, stretching his legs out against the opposite wall. 

“Hey uh, you okay in here?” A voice called suddenly. 

Will froze. Fear and shame creeping through his body at the thought of being caught in such a vulnerable position. 

“Yeah.” He tried to say, but it came out sounding more like a pathetic croak. He cleared his throat and tried again. 

“Yeah. Bad breakfast burrito.” 

He sounded confident. Even to himself.

“Are you sure?” 

“Yeah, much better now.” He lied as he flushed the toilet, pulling himself to a standing position with shaking arms, smiling as he heard the creek of the bathroom door swinging shut.

He opened the stall door cautiously, making sure he was alone again before walking over to the sink, rinsing out his mouth and splashing water on his face. 

He looked tired, but not nearly as tired as he felt. 

He looked at his reflection, perfectly arranging his features into the mask he’d perfected so many years ago, as a little boy with a bloody nose and grazed knees. 

‘Man up’ 

Sadness twisted his in stomach. 

And he knew. 

He knew. 

But he slung his stethoscope around his neck and painted a neural express on his face.

He had work to do. 

He didn’t have time to be depressed. 

‘Man Up.’


End file.
